China Pearl — Restaurant in Quincy

PLEASE BEWARE OF THE TIPPING SITUATION AT THIS RESTAURANT. CHECK THE BILL CAREFULLY FOR CHARGED BEFORE YOU PAY SINCE THEY ONLY ACCEPT CASH PAPER FOR WEDDINGS. THEY DO WEDDINGS OF 50 TABLES, EACH WEDDING MENU IS AROUND $1000 PER TABLE NOT INCLUDING ALCOHOL AND EXTRA. We chose this place as our wedding venue. My mother helped me paid them at the end of my wedding thinking i already worked it out with the restaurant. I checked the bill the next day & noticed they charged me 20% tip on tax. Total bill was $ 22394.00 + tax 1567.90 = 23961.60 + $4792.30 tip = $28753.90. We had 17 tables of 10 guestS per table. This is very unethical. Tip should be on food & beverages WITH service they provide. I didnt know we have to tip on taxes too. If this were charged on my card i would have contacted the bank and dispute it already but they asked for CASH PAPER. IF SOMEONE HAVE A BIG WEDDING OF 50 TANLES+, THEY WOULD BE PAYING THOUSAND OF DOLLARS ON TAX WHEN THEY ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO. TO ALL PAST AND FUTURE CUSTOMERS, REVIEW YOUR BILLS. I took notice because the next day after my wedding, my mother called asking what we do with our wedding cake at her house. I asked her what was it doing at home when the restaurant was supposed to cut it & serve our guests. I called the restaurant & a lady name Patty answered. She said she was there & food was still being served & insisted that her servers went to cut the cake but the cake wasnt there. They have been doing wedding for a long time, they knew what to do after bride and groom cut the first piece. I thought there were some misunderstanding so I reviewed some of the clips from guests. Wedding was from 6pm to 10pm. We cut the first piece approximately around 9:40pm and also asked for dessert to come out right after as guests were ready to leave soon. I took a screenshot the cake after we already cut the first piece still on the cake table at 10:01pm and another screenshot of it still on the cake table at 10:36pm until almost 11pm without being moved. What upset me the most was how they never appoogized and owned up their mistakes but insisted they knew what to do and cake was not there when the cake was never moved anywhere until the last person left which was around 11pm. Patty then insisted she asked her staffs and staffs said it was not there when i have proofs. I asked her to review the camera and she said they had no camera in their restaurant. When she had nothing to say she then said they were not instructed to cut the wedding cake & served it. I told her the purpose of the wedding cake is to be cut & served if they have been doing this for so long. Then she said why i didnt say anything that night when i specificly mentioned it to the manager who name was Annie & who just let this Patty lady dealt with me. I specific told Annie some guests were allergic with certain ingredients so we would also have 150 pastries on a designated dessert table for them as well as wedding cake as dessert. She understood but she passed it on to Patty who wasn't part of the planning when problem arose. This is just very unprofessional & unethical for demanding 20% tip when guests also complained servers werent serving water & they had to get up & got their own water from the drink station, brought water jug to their assigned table and poured for other guests. The management said they dont serve water to the table but if guests asked servers, they would bring water. How do guests ask when they barely stop by the tables. I am very disappointed & regreted i chose this place. When Patty & I talked briefly on the wedding & i showed how excited i was to pick their restaurant over other places and Ming seafood (also one of my top choice), Patty laughed & said they have better food. She was nice & all but after she was being ignorant & throwing blames around, it upsets me. I will pursue legal action on this matter & spread awareness. If anyone have similar experiences please let me know. Phone conversations should be recorded, messages or emails should be saved between the restaurant...

Went for lunch a couple of week ago on Thursday. (Only because our fave spot is closed on Thursdays now.) There was no wait for a table. We arrived before noon. Only the front left side of the restaurant was opened for dining. Walking in and it wasn't welcoming, just very dark (ceilings painted black and dim. Kinda dreary dungeon-esque. We ordered a few of our faves and tried a new rice roll. The first item was Chicken and Mushroom Rice Roll ($5.25). It was so bland, like they forgot to season the filling. Not only bland but cold. How is this possible when rice rolls are usually made to order?! The temperature was like it was sitting on the counter for a good 20 mins after steaming. The watery sweet soy drizzle gave it some flavor. This was a new dish for us

2nd item: Fried Taro Dumplings with pork filling ($6.95). This came lukewarm. So much flour was mixed into the mashed taro that you could barely taste the taro. There was about a tsp of filling. Definitely not worth the price.

3rd dim sum: Chiu Chow Fun Gor ($5.25) This arrived room temp also but the wrapper was already splitting near the bottom. It was ok except not being hot & the wrapper breaking apart when you pick it up

4th dish: Chicken Feet ($5.95) was warm but not piping hot. It was bland & a bit tough making it hard to eat. We've had much better elsewhere.

5th item: Steamed Char Siu Bao ($5.25). What a disappointment. The bao was so dense (like a doorstop), like they used too much flour so it didn't rise or they didn't give it enough resting time for yeast to work it's magic. Filling was ok.

6th dish: Shiu Mai ($5.95) were lukewarm also. We did not like their version. It was all pork and bland. There were no traditional shitake mushrooms or shrimp inside the filling.

7th dim sum: Chicken Sticky Rice ($6.95). This arrived warm with barely any filling on the inside: tiny nub of Chinese sausage and about a tsp of minced pork filling. Very underwhelming. They are smaller than other spots.

The last dish: You think waiting over 35 mins for it, it will be worth it. Nope! Our Rice Roll Wrapped around a Chinese fried dough sticks ($5.95 )not only took so long to arrive, it was room temp . I don't understand how this is possible. The rice roll was made so uneven that it didn't cover parts of the fried dough which was soggy/chewy and not crispy so give you the contrast of soft and crispy mouth feel.

Definitely a let down. We will Not return. The 1 star is for the hot tea.

Service was almost non-existent. Was asked what kind of tea we wanted when we were escorted to our table. Tea never arrived, 10 mins later. Chose our items on the order sheet but no one was around to take the order. I had to stand up & wave the order sheet to catch one of the servers attention. Then asked for tea again. We had such a hard time catching a server attention that we just ate the dishes as is since we were starving.

If you go on a weekday, the dim sum items most likely be frozen (they sell bulk dim sum that you can cook at home) and reheated; this would explain why all the steamed items were cold. They need to add more steam time for frozen items.

2 days later we had to go to Windsor where everything was piping hot and fresh. It help erase this horrible experience.

PS. Keep your eye on the food runner, one delivered 1 dish but checked off 2. We had to catch her when she walked by & let her know we didn't get the 2nd...

Dinner tonight 21 June 2023. Three of us. I got pia pa tofu with added Chinese broccoli one friend got pork chow mein and other friend got pork fried rice, chicken fingers and boneless spare ribs. On the whole we liked the food. We all had a few things we wish tasted better..for me the tofu was too limp and kind of steamed too much it didn't have much flavor and it didn't really hold it's shape. But i can't complain I didn't hate it. I ate it and it was just a minor issue the veggies were great and portion was perfect. My friend said several of his pork pieces were too fatty to eat and my other friend said the boneless spare ribs were not the best. But we all agreed the remainder of the food was delicious..... We would def come back.

The waiter Dave was a gentleman and was very attentive to us. Cordial and took good care of us. Thank You Dave!

The atmosphere is nice... Well it was empty we were the only ones in there so I can't say what it would be like if the place was packed out. But being it was empty the atmosphere was quiet and relaxing. The dinning area is huge good place for large parties.

Just FYI for the three plates Total bill was $57 oh rice is not included with your meal two dollar charge for small bowl of white rice.

Ate here again two days later it was still delicious..... But on this visit the put my food in a small ceramic bowl...... Which did nothing to enhance the flavor but it did have the affect of making the portion much smaller. So if you go ask them not to serve your food in the ceramic hot pot or bowl. I also order noodles this time Singapore rice noodles not meat sub veggies. They did a good job of adding veggies which most restaurants don't do. The only small complaint I have is the noodles were dry. Check both of my plates out going to...